


little whispers draw us closer

by summerchild



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, jealous!zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerchild/pseuds/summerchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s something in the dynamics of their relationship; Harry thinks he should’ve seen this long coming.”<br/>Or, five moments that lead to something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little whispers draw us closer

_(v)_

“Would you, um – would you _really_ like to date me, Haz?”

Zayn’s question catches him by surprise when he tries to fill up his plate with the lasagna, clumsy self almost ready to watch it fall over his converse, but Zayn jumps in immediately, stabilizing Harry like the rock he always has been, an arm already curled around Harry’s waist. Harry looks at him in mild shock.

“Um, _what_?”

Zayn looks contemplative for a moment, as if he’s seriously considering stalling off and forgetting about this all, but he refrains; Harry can see the struggle on his face. “The interview, today – you, um, you said you’d like to date me.” Zayn tries for what would normally classify as his ‘nonchalant little laugh’ but it comes out forced and _not_ spontaneous and Harry just questions why he even notices.

It’s not like Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about – he might be an idiot sometimes, but he’s not unaware of the things he says – and only looks at Zayn blankly. He remembers a pretty RJ, Niall by his side and a fairly easy string of questions leading up to the final one –

“So, lads, here’s something that thousands of your fans, including me, occasionally wonder – if you could date anyone from the band, who would you pick?”

And Harry remembers Niall chuckling and nudging him, immediately whispering _ZaynZaynZayn_ before Harry’d kicked him furiously underneath the table, and looked at the host with a dimpled smile.

 _“I don’t quite know,”_ he’d wanted to say, but Niall had cut his sentence off with a “Zayn – Harry’d pick Zayn in a heartbreak.”

The interviewer had looked too pleased, Harry remembers, and had immediately questioned him, and Harry’d found his shoulder sagging, shrugging lightly.

“I don’t really know,” he’d chuckled nervously. “I mean, anyone with eyes can see how lovely Zayn is, but he’s probably the sweetest kind of boyfriend– the little things, he’d always be aware of the little things, wouldn’t he?” He'd looked to Niall for approval, and the blond had smiled in agreement, urging Harry to continue with a soft nudge. “He’d probably do everything in his power to make you feel special, I reckon, and isn’t that what we all want from a relationship? Just someone to make us happy.”

Niall had immediately burst into laughter and called him out on his use of ‘Little Things’ and he’d laughed too, glad that it was forgotten.

Until now, unfortunately.

Zayn’s still watching him carefully, and Harry stumbles over his feet as he walks to the couch, Zayn only a few steps behind.

“I don’t know – Niall mentioned it and I just, I went along?”                   

He’s fibbing, and badly too, but Zayn just nods in consideration and takes a seat next to Harry before Harry pieces together the absurdity of this entire sequence and almost spits out his spoonful in haste.

“Zay, you were listening to our interview?” He chuckles, gleaming. Zayn flushes a little, looks to the ground for a moment before meeting his eyes. “Well, the lads and I were in the room when it was on,” he defends softly, but his eyes betray him.

Harry doesn’t ask.

.

_(iv)_

It’s not like Harry spends the majority of the time thinking about the kind of people Zayn’d like to date, but he’s sure there has to be a type. Harry has a type, too, he’s grown to realize – dry humored, intelligent, creative– and he wonders what Zayn looks for.

Maybe Zayn likes people who know poetry; maybe he’s waiting for someone to whisper the perfect quote to map his back like a constellation.

And its things like these that keep him up certain nights, that make him stumble out of bed and up the stairs until he’s in the familiar terrace. The wind roars, rushes through his hair like a memory he’d forgotten he had, and he realizes then that this is just another thing that Australia or L.A. or anywhere else couldn’t have given him – this sense of belonging, of home – and he wonders if that’s what love is like, too.

“You know, this is quite deep for a nineteen year old boy,” Zayn sniggers next to him. Harry  _doesn’t_ stumble and he’ll stick to that till his dying breath, but Zayn doesn’t notice anyway.

“What is?” Harry asks, in light of Zayn’s gaze.

“This,” Zayn gestures lazily, “Contemplating about life on the terrace on a night that every reasonable person would prefer to snuggle in bed.”

“You’re here too,” Harry points out immediately, and Zayn doesn’t even blink.

“I followed you,” he says lightly. “I heard the door and I knew it had to be you. You’re always restless when we come back, always looking for the crowds and their screams, aren’t you?”

Maybe he is, he thinks, but what really stuns him is Zayn’s confidence in his words – Harry’s never once realized what an open book he might really be, and it’s not fair, because Zayn knows all these weird things about him and Harry doesn’t even know what kind of people Zayn’s interested in.

It’s almost enough to make him want to stomp his foot and pout. Really.

Zayn nudges him softly. "It's fine, I miss it too, you know." It's so soft that Harry thinks it's a wonder he even hears it - he'd have thought it would get lost on its way to him. Zayn's looking at him, careful and worried, concern shining bright and loud.

"It's not that," Harry says suddenly, wanting to suddenly be honest about it all. It really gets tiring, this pretence he think he can live in forever. But then he remembers the way Zayn calls him mate, or the way they always go to each other for advice - relationship advice, his mind helpfully adds - and he can't. He can't wreck that. "Or maybe it is,' he adds at the end, resigned.

Honesty is far too cunning, but lying is just tiring him out.

"It's not," Zayn says, leaning towards Harry. "It's something else entirely, isn't it?"

Harry hopelessly shrugs - if he really tries to get down to lying, his secret will be out before he knows it. Zayn knows him too well anyway.

But, because Zayn's an angel and the brightest beam of sunshine in the morning and maybe the sun itself, he doesn't push, doesn't prod, just nudges Harry once more.

"Well, whatever it is, don't let it keep you up too long.  _Wouldn't want dark circles under those lovely eyes_."

Harry chuckles softly at Zayn's imitation of Lou that is so far from the real thing, his accent thickening what Lou's gentle voice chants to him every time. But the worry is just the same, right there for Harry to see.

He turns to the older boy with a soft smile. "I won't. G'night, Zay." 

But Zayn doesn't leave immediately, stands there contemplating something for a few seconds before he hugs Harry, quick and sudden, turning his mouth towards Harry's ear to whisper a quick, "I'm here if you need me- always remember that, yeah?" before he pulls away and it takes everything in Harry not to pull him back.

He presses a swift kiss to Harry's temple as a goodbye before he walks out, and Harry wonders why it suddenly feels like everything has changed.

.

_(iii)_

 

Zayn doesn't get jealous, is the thing.

Sometimes Harry loses the part of him that thinks rationally and wonders if jealousy, like every movie he's ever watched with Gemma has taught him, plays as big a part in the formation of a love story as it seems. 

It's pathetic, he knows, and he'd be lying if he said he's never tried it. He did, initially; a few days after the initial shock of 'I-think-I-fancy-Zayn' had sunk in. He hadn't done much, but he'd tried to flirt with a couple of girls while Zayn was around, eyes flying to the older lad's face every few minutes to see if there was any recognition, any remorse, but there never had been. Zayn's face had always been as blank as the white canvas he'd paint on whenever he could, and it unnerved Harry, but he had to give up on the movie tactic - there was really, really nothing quite as horrible as having an unrequited crush on someone you had to see every single day.

Now, though, now Harry doesn't try. He fleets between people like the charmer he is and tries to meet people for the sake of meeting people, not for the reaction he knows he won't get. It's a little funny how grown up he feels, how it almost feels like winning because for a few minutes he forgets about Zayn, about the color of his voice and his soft snores and loses himself in different eyes, brown and gray and blue and green, but never quite the shade he wants to see.

It's been a busy few days after the album launch, and it's no surprise that they're craving to get out of the public scrutiny so Paul, being the miracle worker he is, gets them to a pub in a small street somewhere, and reckons no one will think it to find them there. It's small and full of clammy bodies, but the music's alright, so Harry lets himself get lost for a while, lets himself enjoy a Friday night, partying it up like he would be if he'd ever gone to university, and it makes him smile.

He stumbles -  _of course he stumbles,_ he thinks gruffly - and loses his balance for a couple of seconds, hands falling on the body closest to him for support, and he finds his arm being clutched in return. "Thanks," he mumbles, voice groggy and slurry. "I'm a clumsy mess," he adds, giggling slightly.

He's not nearly as drunk, though, to not notice the blue of the eyes that are watching him, intrigued.

"I've got you, no worries."

The guy looks at him attentively, and Harry dimples at him, scooting closer. "Thank you," he says again with more feeling, stepping into the guy's personal space. He doesn't push him away, though, so that's a good thing.  They're dancing together; Harry can feel the boy's arm hovering close to his waist.

"Are you in Uni?" The boy asks, raising his voice over the music. Harry feels uninhibited, so he nods, thankful that he's not always recognized. There's a normalcy in this, a strange kind of high in having to make an entirely new impression of himself. "Are you?" He asks, pressing closer to whisper into the guy's ear.

"I am, yeah," he chuckles, and Harry's somehow pressed close enough to him to feel it against his skin, too. He lets himself close his eyes for a minute, looking at the ground as he tries to savor the freedom that's coursing through his veins in that precise moment.

"I'm Daniel," the boy introduces after a few moments of silence between them, the club too loud and full, and Harry smiles again. 

"I'm," he doesn't want to give himself away, so, "I'm Adam," he lies flawlessly.

"Okay, Adam," the boy grins, "Why don't I get us some drinks, yeah?"

He's so soft, Harry notes, with blond hair falling into his eyes and cheeks flushed from the heat, or maybe the proximity, and he nods with a smile. "I'll be here."

Except, he's not, because the minute the boy's gone Harry finds himself being turned around roughly, and he almost can't hide the shock at seeing Zayn before him - only an inch or two between them - fuming with anger. Harry wants to pull himself back just to spite him, but Zayn's grip is bruising, and he can't hide the smirk from his face when he watches the older lad expectantly.

"Yes?" Harry manages, makes a big show of looking over his shoulder for  _Damien? Daniel?_   He really can't remember, when Zayn pulls him with a hard tug and leads the way. Harry doesn't fight him, doesn't think he has the strength to, and follows clumsily.

They don't get too far, just a little bit away from the club, before Harry realizes what's actually happening. He's nowhere near drunk enough for this - this weird confrontation that he'd undoubtedly been chasing after but now doesn't want anymore.

"What were you doing, Haz?"

"I don't know what you mean," he says, feigning innocence. Zayn just scoffs at him, like this is the most hopeless thing he's ever seen.

"That - that guy, Harry," Zayn says bitterly. "What was  _that_?"

Harry feels defiant, so he pulls his hand away. "It's none of your business, is it?"

He doesn't know why they're fighting - it's not like they're secret boyfriends, but this feels strangely intimate. He feels like he's daring Zayn to test their boundaries, to cross the lines that he doesn't even know got smudged somewhere along the way.

Zayn stills at his response and immediately takes a step back. He looks like he's been slapped. "You- you're right, um. This isn't any of my business."

He looks so bruised and hurt that it makes Harry feels like a dick, but his mind's too slurred to come up with a proper apology so he just watches as Zayn scurries away. He tries to reach out once, but Zayn doesn't see him. He just walks away like Harry's so easy to leave behind, like the past few minutes were just a figment of his imagination.

Harry watches his form leave and falls down on the pavement, suddenly too sober. 

.

_(ii)_

 

Harry doesn't remember much of that night, not in painful detail atleast, but it's hard not to notice how Zayn changes.

Over the next few days Harry can't help but watch how Zayn distances himself as much as he can, sticking to only Louis or Niall during interviews. Harry's glad they don't have any concerts coming up, because this discomfort between them is so obvious that it'd undoubtedly have the whole world sniffing and trailing at its feet, desperate to know the cause.

If he's being honest, Harry still doesn't know what the problem is. He wasn't wrong, he grumbles to himself sometimes, and it's not fair how Zayn can barge in one day and act like Harry's boyfriend and then start ignoring him the next.  _It's not fair._

So he retaliates the only way he knows how: he distances himself even more from Zayn.

Instead of waiting for a chance to speak to Zayn like he had been doing the past week, he just walks away whenever they’re in the same vicinity. He doesn't know whether Zayn notices, he just does it for himself, because being around Zayn and still _not_ being around Zayn bugs him much more than it should. Sometimes, during interviews, he catches Zayn's eye, but he turns his head away before the older lad can. He never waits to see how Zayn reacts because he doesn't, probably. Zayn is so hard to read that it makes Harry want to groan in frustration.

It's funny, really, how they started off at the wrong foot of misunderstandings and mutual dislike, then stumbled their way into a clumsy friendship which grew into them being there for each other, always, and now Harry feels like a stranger when they're sharing space.

It makes him want to cry, if he's being honest.

And he does, on one hotel night between the restless days of promoting the album around America. The tears are too much for him, and he shudders under their weight, but he can't seem to stop. Maybe it's a few seconds, minutes or hours, but he falls asleep, tired and exhausted from his own emotional self, only to be awoken by a loud banging on his door. He wakes up groggily, headache already forming, but it's half-four in the morning and he groans exasperatedly, but no sound comes out.

He pushes himself out of the king sized bed and drags himself to the door, covers draped around his shirtless torso, and opens the door after some difficulty with coordinating his brain and his hands to do what he wants.

A body pushes past him into the room, shoving him with all its weight, and Harry blinks blearily before he makes out the ZAP tattoo pressed his forearm, a terrifyingly worried Zayn standing before him.

 _"Where the fuck were you, Harry?"_ He all but screams. Harry's thankful he shut the door or this would be horrible for the other boys. 

"I was sleeping," he wants to say but the words don't come out. Zayn watches him struggle with his words before his eyes fall on Harry's swollen eyes.

"Were you crying, Haz?" He asks, suddenly much closer, much softer. His hand reaches up to trace the circles underneath Harry's eyes, pink with the obvious after-effects of sobbing into his pillow, and he almost closes his eyes at how good it feels, but he catches Zayn's hand, stopping the movement of his fingers.

"It's 5 in the morning, Zayn," Harry says, tired. The _'we haven't spoken in days so what are you doing here now?'_ doesn't need to be said. He knows Zayn understands.

"Gemma called me, said you hadn't answered her calls all night. She was so worried; she thought something happened to you. What happened?"

Zayn's eyes are still on his face, fingers still laced with Harry’s on his cheek, and Harry wants to curl into Zayn and tell him everything before he realizes where their relationship currently stands.

"You've been ignoring me, haven't you?"

Zayn drops his head, embarrassed, and Harry has his answer.

" _I don't understand you!_ I thought we were best friends and maybe even more sometimes and then you- you just wake up one morning hell-bent on ignoring me!” Harry's furious, so when Zayn tries to stop him he just raises his palm to shush the older boy. “Just, just let me finish. I don’t understand you, you know? One second you’re all ‘Harry this, Harry that’ and the other you’re walking around like you don’t even have a fucking clue who I am. I don’t even know what I did _wrong_ , you know? You didn’t even tell me that much, but it’s the least you could do, don’t you think? What is it, Zayn? _What do you want from me?"_

Harry's voice breaks at last, and he lets Zayn's hand fall from his grip, trying to blink back his tears. He's such a girl, sometimes. He clears his throat once, then twice, before he trusts his voice enough to speak again. "You should go," he says, voice stained and eyes pooling. "We'll talk tomorrow."

But Zayn doesn't move an inch, studying Harry. "C'mere, Haz," he says, but doesn't wait for the younger boy to respond, just pulls him in. Harry holds on tightly, afraid and so fragile like he's sixteen again, but Zayn's arms are strong around him. He doesn't know how long they stay there tangled, but Harry doesn't feel like he might break anymore, which is a good sign, so he pulls away from Zayn softly.

"Why were you ignoring me?" He asks in a small voice. He's hoping the answer is what he thinks it is.

Zayn looks calm and peaceful, no longer distancing himself from Harry. "I'm an idiot, that's why. We'll talk tomorrow, okay? Let's just go to bed now. It's late."

Harry nods because as much as he'd love to have this conversation right now, he's too tired, and follows Zayn to the bed. He doesn't have to even think about anything before Zayn's spooning him, an arm around his waist and face pressed in Harry's hair. Harry's sure he can feel Zayn's shallow breaths on his neck, and it's a strange kind of peaceful.

The kind that only comes about after a storm.

.

_(i)_

 

Harry wakes up to find his face pressed against the tattoo of the lips on Zayn's chest, and immediately pulls away. The previous night comes back to him in bits and pieces, and by the time he's truly figured everything out, Zayn's staring at him, unabashed fondness gleaming in his eyes. 

Harry flushes, embarrassed, but doesn't pull away. This is strangely new territory, he realizes, and it scares him senseless because he's still not sure if they're on the same page, him and Zayn.

He starts to say something, but Zayn cuts him off. "I should go first," he says softly, and Harry nods. They're whispering in the millimeters of space between them, and he's convinced he'll never be able to forget just how vulnerable and pretty Zayn looks in the early hours of dawn with the sunlight contouring his face, his eyes gleaming at Harry like the brightest stars.

"I got jealous," he admits, softly. "I lost my mind. I don't even know why, you know? It's just, you looked so happy and careless with that boy and for the past few months I thought maybe you, um, maybe you felt the same way as I did, but then I wasn't sure anymore and it got frustrating and I just, I just burst. I'm sorry, _I didn't know_."

The words are coming too fast and Harry doesn't quite catch them all because his mind is stuck on the fact that this is the confession he's been aching to hear and it's there, it's finally there in the open for them to do with as they please and Harry just watches Zayn with a brilliant smile.

Zayn hasn't quite gotten the hint yet, Harry assumes, because he still looks timid and scared.

"Haz?" He wants to ask, probably, but Harry's already pushed into his orbit and pressed his lips against Zayn's, finally doing what he's been thinking of for all the months that have led up to this. Zayn doesn't respond immediately, but Harry's insistent and there and he'll wait because he knows now, the answer to the question that's kept him up for so many nights.

They stay there, tangled for hours, learning the shape of each other's lips and bodies, and Harry feels like maybe he's flying.

Later - much, much later - when Harry tells him about all the times he's watched Zayn just like he knows now that Zayn watched him, when he tells Zayn how worried he was that he was alone in this, harbouring an unreciprocated crush, Zayn laughs and shoves him, whispering, "You tosser, you know everyone loves you," with so much love shining in his eyes that Harry wonders how he never saw it before.

"You're not everyone though," Harry says. "You're just you, and that's what makes you the best."

Zayn groans at the cheesiness that is Harry Styles, but he pulls him in for a kiss anyway, and it's simple as that, really.

.

 

 

 

(and)

Nothing changes, though. They're still the same idiots they once were, but there’s a lot less jealousy and a lot more kissing, and it’s lovely, the perfect kind of balance that he should’ve known he could only find with Zayn.

They’ve been evolving from the first day they met, he realizes now, meshing and moulding in all the right places until they just fit, jagged ends against each other until it became some semblance of a whole, and it’s thoughts that this that make him grin when he wakes up in the morning to find Zayn pressed against him, lips always grazing Harry’s temple or his neck.

“Love you,” Harry mumbles into the quiet between them, and Zayn always shuffles closer. It surprises him, sometimes, how in tune they are to each other, even in their sleep, but he pushes it aside.

It’s something in the dynamics of their relationship; Harry thinks he should’ve seen this long coming.

.

 

 

 

_fin._

 

**Author's Note:**

> First work on AO3, and first attempt at Zarry, but if you've gotten this far, hopefully it wasn't too bad!  
> Thoughts/Kudos would be appreciated, but thank you for reading! <3
> 
>  
> 
> _come say hi on[tumblr!](http://thiswaybackhome.tumblr.com/)_


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